The Art of War

Chapter 54

Rome, 18 December AD 69

Caenis

I rose early on the eighteenth of December: this day was like none other.

Pantera and his men had not carried my litter for some time by then, but Matthias had hired me another team for the day and I was transported to Sabinus’ house before the first dunghill cocks announced the dawn. Matthias himself I left behind in case Domitian came; I wish now that I hadn’t.

At the top of the hill, men were already gathering, stamping their feet, blowing into their hands against the December frosts, watching Sabinus’ door in the torchlight, just as they would have watched the emperor’s, wanting to be among the first to hail him as he emerged.

It was still dark when Sabinus walked out amongst them. He didn’t yet accept their homage, but progressed through the growing crowd, greeting each by name. All eighteen senators who had attended the meeting at my house the day before were there, and each had brought along a dozen friends at least.

In their hundreds, therefore, they filled the street, a slow river of white togas and greying heads. Of the two consuls, one had gone to be with Vitellius to take his abdication, while the other — Quinctillius Atticus, famed for his fish-pool — remained here, and moved through the crowd, distributing pamphlets.

He pressed one into my hand. It bore an image of Vespasian that underdid his nose and overstated his chin, with, beneath: THE SUPERIORITY OF VESPASIAN AS EMPEROR

There followed a rambling list of reasons why Vespasian was the only rational choice for emperor. I’m sure they were perfectly valid, but I couldn’t bring myself to read them. In any case, Sabinus was there.

‘Caenis!’ He embraced me, his gaze sliding over my face as he glanced over my shoulder at more important men. He pulled himself back and looked me in the eye. ‘Where’s Domitian?’

‘I don’t know. He didn’t come home last night.’

‘Is that unusual?’

‘Not really. He’s free to do what he wants.’ It was immensely unusual, actually, and on the first night of Saturnalia doubly so, but it was not out of character for how he had been behaving recently, and in any case I didn’t feel that Sabinus needed to know all the boy’s secrets.

I said, ‘He’ll be home by noon. He won’t miss Dino’s poppy-seed cakes.’ I believed this to be true, and had no way of knowing that by noon I would have no home for him to return to.

Sabinus was still looking at me, frowning. I pointed behind him, saying, ‘The Watch is here,’ and Sabinus strode off to meet the commanders of the Watch and the Urban cohorts who had brought their men in their entirety to offer their oath of fealty to Vespasian. Within moments, their standard-bearers lined the street and Sabinus was standing at their head in his brother’s place.

He needed no written copy of the oath: he had been enough of a soldier to know it by heart and to know that he must be seen to be competent for his brother’s sake.

‘Men of the empire: in the name of Jupiter, Best and Greatest, do you now take the oath to honour and to serve, as long as you may live, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, to give your lives in his defence and that of the empire?’

They did. All of them. Unanimously and with enthusiasm.

It was done swiftly enough and the men were sent back to their barracks to await orders: Sabinus did not wish to be seen to have taken Rome by force.

That, at least, was what he told Pantera some short while later, when the spy turned up, clean, calm, damp-haired, with the rosemary scent of a man who had recently bathed, or at least seen the attentions of a sponge.

‘You let them go?’ Pantera clearly thought Sabinus insane.

Sabinus, for his part, was brother to the man just named emperor by three Urban cohorts and the entire city Watch. He had no interest in Pantera’s opinion.

‘Vitellius has abdicated. What need have I of the cohorts?’

‘Nothing, if that were true, but it is not. Vitellius has not abdicated. The Guard refused to let him. He has returned to the palace, and has sent his wife and son to safety. These are not the actions of a man planning to leave office in the immediate future.’

‘But he gave his word!’ Sabinus flushed an unmanly purple. ‘He swore before the altar in the temple of Apollo…’

‘He has reneged on that oath.’

It’s amazing how fast a single sentence can spread. Within four breaths, the crowd was buzzing like a kicked hive.

Pantera took Sabinus’ elbow. ‘Geminus and his Guards know exactly how much they have to lose when Vitellius goes. Having put him on the throne, they are not inclined to let him give it up. You need to call back the cohorts and march on the palace.’

‘And begin a war of my own? I think not!’

Sabinus drew himself up to his tallest; he was not impressive, but he was the centre of attention and that conferred its own authority.

‘We shall walk to the forum ourselves and explain to the people of this city how matters stand. The Guard are only three thousand. In a city of a million souls, they do not make the majority.’